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US cash equity markets closed in the green. Futures rallied before the open stateside amid reports that North Korea expressed a willingness to talk to the US about denuclearization. The improvement in sentiment for risk failed to last, however, as stocks gains narrowed with investors contemplated the possibility of a global trade war, inspired by Trump’s proposed steel and aluminium tariffs. Of note, Senator Purdue said Trump is open to changes on tariffs. Staying in Washington, US President Trump said the EU has been particularly tough on the US and makes it difficult to do business and reiterates plan to implement tariffs on steel, adding the US cannot lose steel industry. Trump stated trade wars are not so bad when the US has a deficit with many countries. He also said he thinks North Korea is sincere in willingness to hold discussions, partly sue to sanctions. In currency space, the US Dollar remained on the back foot, losing ground against most of its G10 counterparts, while the Antipodeans were the outperformers on the day. Elsewhere, oil prices were little changed at the close with US crude futures settling at $62.60 (+$0.03). In post-settlement trade, oil prices declined after private inventory data showed a larger than expected build in US crude inventories. Also of note, the EIA cut their forecast for 2018 world oil demand growth by 30K BPD to a 1.70 Mln BPD YoY increase; 2019 was unchanged at 1.72 Mln BPD. In Europe, French Finance Minister Le Maire said reports that France are taking a tough stance in Brexit talks are not correct.

Following the US close, the NYT reported that Gary Cohn is to resign as US President Trump’s top Economic Advisor. The headline saw the US Dollar lose ground in currency space along with the Mexican Peso and Canadian Dollar. US equity futures also opened sharply to the downside. Usd/Jpy fell further after BBG carried the headline that the US is said to be mulling further curbs on imports from China. In Europe, UK Chancellor Hammond said it is within the interests of both the UK and the EU to include financial services in Brexit deal.

Before the open in Asia, RBA Governor Lowe said our assessment is that the economy is moving in the right direction, adding we expect stronger growth in 2018 than in 2017 and a further reduction in the unemployment rate. Lowe stated it is likely that the next move in interest rates in Australia will be up, not down, this comment led to a firming of the Aussie Dollar. In later comments, Lowe said recent data suggests today’s Q4 GDP may be a little less than +0.5%, but such a result would change their confidence on the outlook. He stated it would be helpful to have a lower AUD at the moment, but AUD is not broadly overvalued. On rates, the RBA Governor said out scenario centrally is that rates will rise, but it is not inevitable, adding it depends on how quickly unemployment comes down. Lastly, mentioning if a rate increase could come quicker because of a stronger economy, that would be good. Data wise, Australia’s AiG performance of construction index rose to 56.0 in February. Meanwhile, New Zealand’s building volume gained 1.4% (f/c +1.0%) q/q in Q4.

Asian bourses traded mixed as they searched for direction after the resignation of US President Trump’s Chief Economic Advisor Gary Cohn after the bell yesterday. Following the resignation, Trump tweeted he will be making a decision on Cohn’s successor soon, adding that many people want the job. On the data front, Australian GDP rose less than expected in Q4, rising a SA 0.4% (f/c +0.5%) q/q and 2.4% (f/c +2.5%) y/y. The Aussie Dollar saw a
slight decline on the data but the lower than expected read was expected after it was highlighted by RBA Governor Lowe in his speech before the open. At the US Fed, Governor Brainard said headwinds are shifting to tailwinds, but are ready to slow or quicken rate increases if forecasts are incorrect, adding gradual US rate increases are likely appropriate. Brainard stated there is larger confidence that inflation will increase to 2%, adding she is encouraged by substantial fiscal stimulus, above-trend growth and full employment. She said she would welcome a mild temporary overshoot of inflation goal. In later comments, the FOMC member said she has greater confidence that gradual rate increases are required and is focused less on under-performance of inflation. Elsewhere, China’s Finance Minister, who said Chinese government debt-to-GDP ratio at 36.2% in 2017, down from 36.7% in 2016, adding in coming years, there will not be large changes in Chinese government debt ratios. In other news, the PBoC set the yuan mid-point at 6.3294 against the Dollar and injected 105.5 Bln yuan via 1-year MLF with rates unchanged at 3.25%.

Looking ahead, at 07:00 GMT, we get Denmark’s industrial production and Norway’s current account balance, followed by France’s trade and current account balances at 07:45 GMT. Next at 08:00 GMT, we get Swiss FX reserves, followed by UK house prices and Sweden’s budget balance at 08:30 GMT. Then at 10:00 GMT, we get Euro Zone GDP, followed by Irish retail sales & industrial production and Turkey’s benchmark repurchase rate (f/c +8.0%; Prev +0.8%) at 11:00 GMT. On the auction front, Sweden sells SEK1.5 bln 2028 bonds at 10:03 GMT, followed by a Norwegian bond sale at 10:05 GMT and a German €4.0 Bln 2026 bonds at 10:30 GMT.

By Dominic Evans and Lisa Barrington ISTANBUL/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Turkish forces and their Syrian rebel allies swept into the northwestern Syrian town of Afrin on Sunday, raising their flags in the town center and declaring full control after an eight-week campaign to drive out Kurdish YPG forces. A spokesman for the rebel fighters said they […]

A final theory explaining how mankind might detect parallel universes was completed by Stephen Hawking shortly before he died, it has emerged. Colleagues have revealed the renowned theoretical physicist’s final academic work was to set out the groundbreaking mathematics needed for a spacecraft to find traces of multiple big bangs. Currently being reviewed by a […]

Uber might begin selling its autonomous driving systems to outside companies, including major automakers, according to a new report from Japan’s Nikkei. The report claims that Uber has had talks with Toyota regarding supplying the automaker with self-driving tech, and that the two are currently in negotiations around how this would work, with talk of […]

Back in 2016 a startup called SearchInk, launched out of Berlin with the aim of combining machine learning with handwriting recognition. The upshot would be the ability to semantically label handwritten documents. Pretty nifty. It went on to raise €4.2 million in seed funding, but after developing this AI to read hard-written documents, it went […]

VentureFriends, the Athens-based VC that has backed the likes of Homie and Weengs, is announcing its new fund, with a first closing of €45 million. ‘VentureFriends II’ sees the VC firm pick up where its original €20 million fund left off, with a remit to do seed investments in Greek startups and beyond that have […]

Alibaba is increasing its control of Lazada, its e-commerce marketplace in Southeast Asia it acquired control of in 2016, after it injected another $2 billion into the business and replaced its CEO with a long-standing Alibaba executive. Alibaba’s first investment came in April 2016 when it bought 51 percent of Lazada for $1 billion, and […]

Tom Goodwin Contributor Share on Twitter Tom Goodwin is EVP, head of innovation at Zenith Media and the co-founder of the Interesting People in Interesting Times event series and podcast. More posts by this contributor The battle for consumers gets physical (instead of virtual) In the new age of ubiquitous connectivity the message is the […]

According to a new report from Raleigh, N.C. television affiliate WRAL, Google might have quietly helped local detectives in their pursuit of two gunmen who committed separate crimes roughly one-a-half years apart. How? According to the story, Raleigh police presented the company with warrants not for information about specific suspects but rather data from all the […]

Facebook has naively put its faith in humanity and repeatedly been abused, exploited, and proven either negligent or complicit. The company routinely ignores or downplays the worst-case scenarios, idealistically building products without the necessary safeguards, and then drags its feet to admit the extent of the problems. This approach, willful or not, has led to […]

Tech hath no fury like a multi-billion dollar social media giant scorned. In the latest turn of the developing scandal around how Facebook’s user data wound up in the hands of Cambridge Analytica — for use in the in development in psychographic profiles that may or may not have played a part in the election […]

“I should go on a weekend trip,” you think to yourself. “I’ll go to the mountains!” And then the weekend comes and all the hotels are booked and you’re tired and the mountains are far and hey look, Netflix! Wing It is a Facebook Messenger bot that tries to get you out of that rut. […]

As more details emerge about Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook data in the U.S. presidential election, members of Parliament in the UK are joining congressional leadership in the U.S. to call for a deeper investigation and potential regulatory action. The Chair of parliamentary committee investigating “fake news”, the conservative MP Damian Collins, accused both Cambridge […]

Having populated most central banks with its alumni, Goldman is now aiming even higher: right at sovereign governments, and on Monday morning, a spokesman for Germany's finance ministry said that the co-head of Goldman Sachs in Germany, Joerg Kukies, will become deputy finance minister in the new German government. Joerg KukiesAccording to Reuters, Kukies will […]

Police in southwest Austin responded Sunday night to the fourth explosion in less than two weeks, hours after authorities issued a direct appeal for whoever has been planting a series of bombs to stop. Two men in their 20's were hospitalized with serious, but non-life-threatening injuries according to Austin Travis County EMS. Authorities cleared a backpack in the […]

Global stocks and S&P futures point to a lower open on Monday and as Mark Cudmore noted earlier this morning, there are plenty of potential catalysts: sudden concerns about global growth rolling over, the slide in Apple suppliers which hit Asian stocks following a report that Apple is developing its own microLED screen, Trump's trade […]

By Mark Cudmore, former Lehman trader and current Bloomberg macro commentator. Macro View: Equity Markets Are Likely to Have Another Swoon Almost all the most important inputs point to lower prices for global equities before the bulls can regain control. Volatility across assets remains elevated. Importantly, the VIX can’t fall back below the crucial 15 […]

NSA whistleblower and former CIA employee Edward Snowden slammed Facebook in a Saturday tweet following the suspension of Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) and its political data analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica, over what Facebook says was imporoper use of collected data. In a nutshell, in 2015 Cambridge Analytica bought data from a University of Cambridge psychology […]

Authored by Finian Cuningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation, British Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May’s dramatic escalation of hostility towards Russia this week has had one benefit closer to home. Labour’s erstwhile popular leader Jeremy Corbyn has fallen casualty to renewed Cold War politics. May, who up to now was beleaguered from the Brexit debacle […]

By Shant Movsesian and Rajan Dhall MSTA FXDailyterminal.com While this week's focus will be on the FOMC and the Brexit talks, we see both the USD and GBP off their respective extremes, and as such will take a quick look at the CAD, which was the clear underperformer last week. Largely based on fears of […]

Thanks to drastic increases in crop yields and the falling need for manual farm labor, a mass migration towards cities started in the years following the Industrial Revolution. This phenomenon first originated in developed economies as people moved to work in factories that produced consumer goods at a scale never before seen. Then in the […]

There is one way to assure that your supply chain is not impacted by the upcoming trade wars: bring all your manufacturing to the host nation and no longer rely on foreign suppliers. That's precisely what Apple appears to be doing because in a move that may cause a dramatic shake-up among the key vendors […]

Via GEFIRA, Clouds are gathering: Weidmann will end QE while Macron’s reform will not solve any problem whatsoever. It’ll be the final push for a Eurosceptic Italy, where plans for parallel currencies are popping up. Add Trump’s trade war to the soup and 2020 promises to turn nasty. It is becoming increasingly clear that at […]